The Three Reasons Russia Backs Assad So Staunchly

The Three Reasons Russia Backs Assad So Staunchly

By Michael Kelley | Business Insider – 8 hours ago

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REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhi

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shake hands as they meet in Moscow's Kremlin December 19, 2006.

Over the course of the 29-month Syrian conflict, Russia has provided the regime of Bashar al-Assad with supplies including guns, grenades, tank parts, fighter jets, advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, long-range air defense missiles, military officers as advisors, diplomatic cover, and lots of cash. So why does the Kremlin back Assad so staunchly?
There are three primary reasons, as illustrated by this report by Krishnadev Calamur of NPR.
1) Strategic: Syria's port of Tartus hosts the only remaining international military base outside of the former Soviet Union.
2) Financial: As of June 2012, Russia’s economic interests in Syria total approximately $20 billion, about $5 billion of which are weapons sales.
3) Philosophical: Andranik Migranyan, director of the New York-based Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, a nongovernmental organization funded by private Russian donors that is considered close to the leadership in Moscow, told NPR's Robert Siegel: "Russia's position is very easy to understand."
"First, Russia is against any regime change from outside of Syria or any other country because according to Russia, any attempt to change the regimes, they are ended up in a chaos and results are quite opposite what were the intentions," Migranyan said. "This was proved in Iraq after the invasions of Americans over there. This was proved in Libya. This was proved in Egypt. And Russia is against principally this regime changes."

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The Three Reasons Russia Backs Assad So Staunchly

The basic philosophical difference between Russia and the U.S. would be in regard to what they value most. The U.S. values Freedom and equality the most. Russians tend to value Stability the most. So, Russians don't want regime changes unless they are sure something better is being put in place. They don't like Chaos. Whereas Americans are used to a form of Controlled Chaos ever since 1776 in some ways so the controlled chaos of Democracy works for us. However, other countries value different things like stability. Americans might think this point of view is strange but then again we didn't grow up there or share their history of the last 1000 years either.